IN A NUTSHELLThe international 5-day expert seminar “responding to the needs of young people today: youth trainers reboot”, which took place from April 6th to 12th of 2017 in Payerbach, Austria, aimed at gathering international youth work trainers in order to discuss and find new ways of responding to the needs of youth work and young people under the current realities and trends in Europe. We also critically reflected our practices especially in light of assessing the actual impact (and lack thereof) of non-formal education, our unconscious bias in our work, and dealing with failures and challenges. Additional inputs were provided by external experts from the business sector and psychology.The meeting was endorsed by the International Youth Work Trainers Guild (iywt.org), funded by ERASMUS+, and hosted by the Austrian organisation coobra – cooperativa braccianti. Based on a co-operation of 16 partner organisations from 16 different countries from the European Union and Neighbouring Partner regions (Armenia, Austria, Belarus, Germany, Greece, Georgia, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Netherlands, Portugal, Russian Federation, Serbia, Turkey, United Kingdom), we had 33 participants who were all international youth work trainers with strong commitment to quality and impact in the international youth work (training) sector. Participants were selected in a way to ensure a wide and diverse representation of the international youth work (training) sector and building-up of a supportive community.METHODS AND AGENDAThe seminar was in large parts self-facilitated and based on the active contribution of all participants, complemented by workshops provided by external experts from the business and academic field, delivered both physically and in the form of webinars. In the agenda, we put a focus on four areas:(*) strengthening the capacities of trainers in non-formal education to meet current trends and challenges in youth work, (eg empowering young people from disadvantaged backgrounds, dealing with issues of migration and refugees, discrimination and violence, unemployment, low level of education, digitalization, etc)(*) discussing and finding ways to deal with bias, challenges and failures in youth work trainings in order to create a safe and empowering atmosphere in NFE activities and to support trainers of NFE in their daily work(*) getting inspiration from business and psychological training practices in order to improve our own practices and impact(*) building a community of youth work trainers that support each other (eg through feedback, coaching and 360 processes), and strive for quality, professional development and recognitionThe specific agenda can be found here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1GkU0hjxgcxg5NLnKox2y5BBhhQonxOcpIMPACT AND LONG-TERM DIMENSIONThe personal and professional development of the participants has a direct impact on the quality of youth work training in their respective countries, strengthens the capacities of their organizations and the trainer circles they belong to in their countries. Through integrating the developed competences in their training practice, they also have a chance to impact youth workers and youth leaders in their country, who directly work with the end-beneficiaries of this seminar – for example marginalized young people.The long-term impact comprises of and is ensured through:(*) raised competences and capacities of the participants, that will show in future training activities(*) specific follow-up activities, eg “AppRaiser” (a strategic partnership-building project aiming to build a digital environment for the assessment and development of trainer competences through 360 processes, feedback and coaching) and “YouTrain” (a cross-sectorial innovation project aiming to produce video tutorials on methods in non-formal education)(*) strengthening of the outcomes of this seminar through the supportive community and partnerships channeled in the International Youth Work Trainers Guild and their strategic plan focussing on support, quality, professional development and recognition of the sectorFURTHER DOCUMENTATIONA short video summary of the expert seminar can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZHbD2QYz3Q, and further documentation can be found at https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1GkU0hjxgcxg5NLnKox2y5BBhhQonxOcp